Saturday, April 28, 2007

Hi, this is Secretary James Tilton of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with this week's California Report.

Governor Schwarzenegger asked me to talk about the historic prison reforms we have approved for California.

The $7.7 billion package will address the dangerous overcrowding in our prisons by adding beds for the first time in a decade. The 53,000 new beds will create space, enhance our rehabilitation and education programs and improve our treatment of drug and mental health disorders.

It will really put the R for Rehabilitation back into the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The Governor has always said it's unacceptable that California has the nation's highest recidivism rate and this agreement takes us a long way toward ending that dubious distinction. The increases in capacity include 13,000 beds for county jails throughout California.

Dozens of these local facilities are so severely overcrowded that they have been forced to release prisoners early or not have them serve their time at all.

We know that many committed new crimes when they should have been in jail.

This will help solve that problem.

This agreement also gives us the clear authority to transfer prisoners to out-of-state facilities.

Sending 8,000 convicts to other states whether they want to go or not will immediately ease overcrowding and make our prisons safer.

I'm confident that this agreement will ease pressure from the courts, who have threatened to put a cap on our population and release thousands of inmates early.

I stand with Governor Schwarzenegger in saying we will work hard to never allow that to happen.

When the Governor inherited this prison crisis he knew Democrats and Republicans had different ideas and philosophies for solving it.

But we worked together with both parties in the Legislature and have taken a huge step forward for public safety.

This agreement is the perfect way to cap Crime Victims' Rights Week here in California.

We have honored all victims of crime by enhancing our ability to carry out justice and we are continuing California's proud leadership in serving the innocent victims of crime.